Social Psychological Correlates Of Occupational Conditio

该项目调查社会环境条件如何影响老年人的心理功能。它测试了一些假设，即随着年龄的增长，社会结构决定的环境条件(如复杂性)如何影响认知功能、自主的自我定向以及一个人对自己和所处环境的感觉，以及心理和身体健康。这些数据来自一项对707名受访者的跟踪调查，该调查最初是在1964年挑选出来的，作为全国代表性样本的一部分，用于调查职业条件如何影响心理功能。今年发表的一篇论文的研究结果表明，在一生中，拥有相当复杂的休闲时间既会影响智力灵活性，也会受到智力灵活性的影响。因此，闲暇时间活动提供了一种机制，环境通过这种机制影响智力功能的稳定性。在其他分析中，我们调查了对健康和财务问题的应对反应。我们发现，尽管对这两类压力源的情绪反应结构相似，但应对机制的效果不同：与经济相关的应对机制似乎影响总体痛苦，而一些与健康相关的应对机制影响特定于健康状况的积极反应。在另一组分析中，我们已经表明，掌握、智力灵活性和自信对健康有可靠的影响；此外，健康对自信有互惠的影响。当我们分析这些变量对残疾相关困难的长期影响时，我们发现：1)这些变量影响20年内的残疾水平，2)这些变量对涉及角色功能差距和无法满足环境要求的残疾的影响比对涉及身体动作的功能限制的影响更明显。

This project investigates how socio-environmental conditions affect the psychological functioning of the elderly. It tests hypotheses about how, as one grows older, social-structurally determined environmental conditions such as complexity affect cognitive functioning, autonomous self-directed orientations and one's feelings about oneself and one's circumstances as well as mental and physical health. The data come from a follow-up survey of 707 respondents originally selected in 1964 as part of a nationally representative sample picked for an investigation of how occupational conditions affect psychological functioning. Findings in a paper published this year demonstrate that having substantively complex leisure time activities both affects and is affected by intellectual flexibility throughout the lifespan. Leisure time activities thus provide one of the mechanisms through which the environment affects the stability of intellectual functioning. In other analyses,we have investigated coping responses to health and financial problems. We have found that although the structure of emotional responses to these two types of stressor are similar, the effects of coping mechanisms differ: financially related coping mechanisms appear to affect overall distress, whereas some health-related coping mechanisms affect positive reactions specific to health status. In another set of analyses, we have shown that mastery, intellectual flexibility and self-confidence have reliable effects on health; in addition, health has a reciprocal effect on self-confidence. When we analyzed the long-term effects of these variables on disability-related difficulties we found that: 1) these variables affect level of disability over a 20-year period, and 2) the effects of these variables are more pronounced for disabilities involving gaps between and inability to fulfill the environmental demands of role functions than for functional limitations involving physical actions.